- We're here at a place that you may have wondered about if you've ever driven past this area in Utah County.

The Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple is a place of worship, a place of learning, and a place of celebration built in the style of Hindu kings.

- We came here in the 80s to buy the radio station.

We had no plans to build any temples or to get a congregation or any of those things.

Krishna had his plan.

(gentle music) We came because my husband was doing broadcasting in California.

He felt at the time, it's time to leave California.

Let's go and buy a radio station.

- Welcome to 1480 KHQN, a Krishna station for the Utah Valley.

This is Caru Das.

- So I thought, well, I'll do something outrageous.

We can never build it, but I'll make something far out, and it'll help bring in some funds.

This is the first elevation print, which gave us an idea of what we would build.

I made an announcement at our little Sunday gathering that we had, you know, in the future we wanna build a temple on top of the hill.

And then of course, it went right into BYU's "Daily Universe," Krishna's building temple in Utah County.

And then all the TV stations and radio stations and newspapers were here.

And we thought, okay, if they want us to build a temple, we'll build a temple.

And we started broadcasting, and people started listening, and they started coming.

And here we are now.

(gentle music continues) The rest is history.

(gentle music continues) (people cheering) (upbeat music) - We started the Festival Colors, I think, in 1995.

Just an excuse to have fun and chant Hare Krishna.

And it's 20,000 people over two days.

We did have a line out the road and going down State Road, a half a mile long, people waiting to get in.

They don't know necessarily the inner significance of it or the seriousness of it to us.

They just have a good time.

It purifies them on some subconscious level.

I think God just wanted to kind of play a joke on all of us and do what we would least expect, is to establish a wonderful, world-class, Hare Krishna temple in the area.

It's 90% another religion.

I can't say that of any other Krishna temple in the world.

(upbeat music) (people cheering) - It's the way it's presented.

It's not an alien culture.

It's just a basic belief in caring and love and devotion.

(calming music) If we understand who we are, that we're the soul, then we see other people as souls, then we see equally.

You can't say he's Black, he's white, he's Indian, he's Muslim, he's Hindu.

They're not.

They have a body which has adapted to the culture and the environment that they're brought up in, but essentially, they're all equal souls.

- Cultural nuances are not that significant when you start with who you are.

I don't identify as a Hindu or as Hare Krishna.

I identify myself as a servant of God.

(calming music continues) - If you understand this, you understand a whole way of life.

(calming music continues) I think I'll hold your arm at this point.

I've, fortunately, got a good husband.

We've been married 51 years.

So marriage to us is sacred.

- God plans out things, that two people who compliment each other with their talents and abilities would somehow or other come to Utah where there's no devotees, no resources, and because of the chemistry between them two, bring something out of nothing.

She's down-to-earth, she's practical.

During the Hindu marriage ceremony, the priest says, "The man is the heaven, and the woman is the Earth."

'Cause the men, the men are just guided.

That means they're always in the clouds.

They're always got these crazy, impractical schemes.

But you need to run it past the woman 'cause she actually knows what's gonna work and what's not gonna work.

You know, when we're building this temple from 1998 to 2001, there was a point at which these all had to be painted and mounted, and she did all of that.

She painted all these pictures here, and she carved the figures that you see in the dome.

And she installed everything 21 years ago.

She'd spent, like, whole days up there on the scaffolding.

(gentle music) - So I went to the London School of Fine Arts.

Then I went traveling around the world, and that's where I came across spiritual life, became a Krishna devotee.

And immediately now, I had a sense of purpose.

Now I know what to paint.

Krishna, it means the most attractive form of God.

So one of the things I do when I have time is paintings for the temples.

So this painting in the background here, it tells the story of Krishna dancing with the peacocks.

Whenever you see any of the forms of the different incarnations of God, Krishna always has a peacock feather.

You can tell him by that.

(gentle music continues) (peacocks squawking) - And there wasn't a single period of time when we had to stop construction or even slow it down for lack of funds.

Don't ask me how it happened.

It was totally mystical.

- [Vaibhavi] Mormon stakes, the wards came and helped.

They bring a hundred kids over to help tie rebar, and BYU students and so on.

And that way the temple went up for a very minimum cost with everyone's input.

- [Caru] Hare Krishna.

(bird squawks) (bird whistles) - This property, we are trying to show that you can live in harmony with nature.

(gentle music) Yeah, sometimes people do ask, (bird chirps) (lock clinks) why do you have these animals, you're a temple?

As far as we're concerned, it's a way of life.

It's not, going to the church or the temple is not something you do on a Sunday for an hour, and then you live a different life.

It's 24 hours, a way of life, which is respect for life, respect for nature, respect for all living beings.

Darling.

Most places, you go to the pond and the fish run away.

Our fish come.

(water flowing) The water goes by siphon down to the gardens.

So we water them with fish water.

We're growing all kind of amazing organic produce for two reasons, the fish water and the llama coop.

So we're putting organics back into the sand.

We're creating soil.

About a month from now, it'll be just all really high.

And then we gotta pick it all, and then we're gonna chop it all up, and then we're gonna cook it all.

(gentle music) It was the atmosphere of the temple that counts.

It has to be very open, liberating, a lot of windows, very light, heavenly.

Everyone can come.

Everyone's welcome.

- We just had a Indian family going through all the National Parks, and they saw our billboard on the freeway, Krishna Temple.

He said, "This is the last thing we expected.

How did you get here?"

And I say, well, you know Krishna he has that look in his eye that says he loves nothing more than a good prank, and so, we're here because God has a sense of humor.

(gentle music continues)